Multielemental Fractionation in Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells by Size Exclusion Liquid Chromatography Coupled to UV and ICP-MS Detection

An analytical methodology is presented in this work to determine metal-biomolecule complexes size distribution patterns of several elements, among different compounds present in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). A hyphenated technique based on size exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled online to UV and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) detection is used. Two different SEC columns with separation ranges between 1,500-1,000,000 relative molecular mass (Mr) (Nanofilm SEC-250) and 5,000 and 100,000 relative molecular mass (Mr) (TSK-Gel G2000 SW) are used with 10 mmol/L tris-HCl at pH 7.3 as mobile phase. Retention behavior (retention time and peak-area ratios) remained unchanged for several successive separations. Metalcontaining compounds are found to a wide range of M r. Copperzinc superoxide dismutase, copper and zinc metallothionein, and copper and zinc transferrin are identified in PBMC samples. A high M r (147,000) metal-binding protein containing copper and zinc and a high Mr (107,000) manganese-binding protein were also found; however, these remained unknown.